


Prompt - Fear, regret

by Munnin



Series: The Star Wars Write Stuff challenge. [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9692216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin
Summary: Poe encourages all of pilots to recognise two things





	

Poe tried to teach all of pilots to recognise two things when they were flying - fear and regret. 

They talked for hours in the back of the hanger, passing around bottles of homebrew. Poe never liked to play the master to his acolytes but some of them were so young. They needed someone, _anyone_ just to talk to them, to help them find their own spirit, their courage. 

He encouraged all the pilots to talk, to foster community. They were a family after all – on the ground and in the air. All there to support each other in the name of freedom.

He talked a lot to the new flyers, and to any of the older ones who needed it about fear. And the difference between fear and instinct. Fear was the one that froze you, stopped you. Fear was the one that made you falter. That wasn’t the same as instinct. Instinct was the voice that told you when to run, when to turn, when to duck. He taught them to listen to that voice, to trust themselves and the force. That the voice was there for a reason, even if they never found out what that reason was. And that if instinct said scatter, it wasn’t the same as fear. Backing off and reassessing wasn’t the same as running away. 

He taught them likewise that regret was a tool. A tool you used to learn from mistakes. That there was no point wasting away on ‘what if’ and instead ‘what next time’. To never linger over a regret unless you can learn something from it. 

Likewise he tried to make sure no-one regretted the sacrifices they made, always making sure every pilot and ground-crew knew how much their effort was appreciated and how much they meant to the cause. 

Alliance sky funerals, for those lost in battle who could never been retrieved, were sombre things. They were what the Generals felt was right and fitting. To honour those who served. But Poe always made sure the wake in the hanger afterwards was a different thing. A celebration of those people’s lives. He made a point of getting to know everyone he could, never letting a flyer die unhonoured or unloved. 

And they loved him for it. Their greatest fear was one day losing Poe. The man who made them brave, the man who made them a family.


End file.
